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On June 22, 1979, Sony Japan launched the Walkman TPS-L2. This video examines how the Walkman has spread throughout the world changing our domestic environments, our attitude toward music, and paved the way for a range of everyday miniature and portable objects, such as the iPod, the MP3 player, the mobile phone, and many more.
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English
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Has beauty vanished from contemporary art? Must today's painting and sculpture repel the eye in order to be taken seriously by the avant-garde? Many observers think so, but acclaimed British critic Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this program he argues that great art is as interested in beauty as it always was, but that perhaps the definition of beauty has changed-and we're looking for it in the wrong places. By the same token, Januszczak asserts,...
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English
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The Red and Blue chair by the Dutch Gerrit Rietveld, made in 1918 and painted in 1923, has dramatically changed the language of furniture as well as that of architecture. This documentary considers the ideas behind that chair, a manifesto of the avant garde De Stijl movement.
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English
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Built at the dawn of the 20th century, the Glasgow School of Art is the masterpiece of the only British artist considered as a precursor of modernity, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The most eminent practitioner of the "Glasgow Style", the equivalent of French Art Nouveau, Mackintosh devoted more than 10 years to fulfilling what is without doubt his most innovative architectural project, a masterwork that combines constructive rationality, Art nouveau...
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English
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Austrian architect Margarete Schütte Lihotzky's 6.5 square meter kitchen rationalized domestic space. Designed in 1926 for the New Frankfurt social housing project and inspired by American and German efficiency studies, this layout pioneered new standards, promoted hygiene, and championed Viennese modernist aesthetics. 10, 000 units were installed, which makes the Frankfurter Kitchen the first industrially produced "fitted kitchen".
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English
Description
What should we do with our dead? Incinerate them? Bury them? Make them disappear? Keep them nearby and visit them? A memorial spanning 20th century architecture and inspired by Le Corbusier and Richard Long, the Igualada Cemetery merges into the countryside near Barcelona. As in the rest of Spain, the dead are not buried, but rather piled into niches, superimposed tombs. Designed by Catalan architects Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos at the start of...
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English
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What do modern art, a symphony, and a documentary film have in common? They all require aesthetic considerations. This program presents the ideas of key figures in the shaping and understanding of aesthetics-from Plato, Francis Hutcheson, and Kant to Leon Battista Alberti, Stendhal, and Tolstoy-and addresses pivotal writings, including Aristotle's Poetics and Morris Weitz's "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics." Columbia University's Arthur Danto and...
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English
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Serge Mouille's lamps are thoroughly modern and timeless. They are unparalleled in both their conception and manufacture, two features essential to the project, and the basis of good design. His outstanding handcrafted work ethic seems obsolete in today's era of industrial outsourcing. Serge Mouille spent his later years teaching his know-how, in the style of the Living National Treasures of Japan, forgoing all awards and accolades from industrial...
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English
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To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter book, the British Library is hosting an exhibition of the real-life magical history behind JK Rowling's beloved classics. With exclusive access to a priceless collection of artifacts, take a tour around this mesmerizing show. Rowling herself examines the most exciting items on display, and opens her private archive to reveal drawings and drafts that have been hidden away for years. As opening...
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English
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Richard Rogers' and Renzo Piano's winning design for the Pompidou Centre looks like an outsize meccano structure, and contrasts sharply with the surrounding Parisian architecture. The architectural project as set out in the competition rules had to meet criteria of interdisciplinarity, freedom of movement & flow and an open approach to exhibition areas. The competition was won by two young architects: Italian Renzo Piano and British designer Richard...
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English
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This video presents a relaxed tour of the city that produced the greatest playwright in history. We are steered through each location under the guidance of our personable hostess who ornaments her in-depth knowledge of Stratford and its illustrious native son with the kind of tales that aren't normally found in guide books. This is the first time ever that the Shakespeare Trust has allowed such detailed access to all the places associated with Shakespeare....
13) The Rivals
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English
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Sheridan’s first play draws on material from his own life—his scandalous marriage to a popular singer and the characters he knew in the town of Bath. His great satire turns the familiar world of arranged marriages, courtship, and rivalry on its head. One of the sharpest and funniest social comedies of the late eighteenth century is presented in the theatre built just nine years before the play was written in 1775.
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English
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Continuing his trek across the Muslim world, art scholar Waldemar Januszczak introduces viewers to masterworks in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia-from the gigantic and surreal mud mosques of Mali; to a rare, 10th-century Egyptian ewer carved out of a single piece of rock crystal; to the inspired urban planning of the ancient city of Isfahan in Iran; to the stunning architecture of Uzbekistan's Samarquand. Januszczak shares his knowledge...
15) La Maga: Part 11
Language
Español
Description
Dorana is a beautiful young girl, who lives a harsh existence. She dreams of a better life, unaware that a cruel hand has robbed her of such a life when she was just a baby. One stormy night, Dorana is magically transported to an unfamiliar world, also known as the Land of Oz. After learning that she was chosen to save Oz from the tyranny of the wicked witch, Dorana sets out on a heroic journey, filled with miraculous revelations about life and love....
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English
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The second part of Andrew Davies' adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel set in 1980s London. It's 1986 and Nick is swept up in the euphoria of excess and power. His affair with self-destructive Lebanese millionaire Wani Ouradi reaches fever pitch at one of the Feddens' high society parties.
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English
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Songs about a certain time and place are more than sentimental musings-they also serve as departure points for cultural and sociological studies. This program uses popular 20th-century French music to explore the rich character and modern-era development of Paris. Juxtaposing commentary from French scholars, performers, and business leaders with classic recordings by Edith Piaf, Brigitte Bardot, Maurice Chevalier, and other artists, the film sheds...
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English
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A staggering number of paintings were once thought to be Rembrandts, but of the 800 or so works attributed to the Dutch master during the 19th century, only about 300 remain authenticated. Interestingly, the 1800s were also a period in which France dominated Rembrandt collecting and research. In the 20th century, expertise shifted to Holland, Great Britain, and the U.S., leaving French holdings isolated and neglected for a time. The Louvre, however,...
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English
Description
Society tells us that beautiful women have it all. But beauty can be as much a curse as it is a blessing. In this sensitively filmed program, eight women labeled as beautiful-two pageant winners, an exotic dancer, a former pop musician, a college student, an assistant paralegal, a physician, and an entrepreneur-explore body image issues through their frank stories of how concepts and realities of physical beauty have molded their lives for both better...
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English
Description
This program presents a look at Victorian society from the cream to the dregs, from the law enforcers to the law breakers, and from the rich and complacent self-made man to the discarded poor and needy. Dickens' firsthand experience of the legal profession certainly qualified him to write with moving poignancy on a subject which created a main thrust behind many of his works and the effects that these real-life experiences had on the innocent.